Mitchell's Mission in Manaus: Week #28 - Ward Party @ Presidente Figueiredo!

Hello World!

Elder Tenney's caption: "Look! The Sky!"

Probably because all he usually sees are clouds and rain.

How are you all doing? I am doing pretty well. This week has been one of the longest weeks of the mission so far for me. I´ll just leave it at I am learning to love my companion.

So, here I am, in the same area, with a very small teaching pool. Elder Martins just turned Senior Companion this transfer, so I am his first junior. Thing is, he told me he doesn’t much like to lead/command, so I end up doing some of the decision making these days. It has been quite a while since I have had a real conversation in English. One week for that matter. There is an American in my district; name is Elder Smith from California. He is fresh out of the CTM, so it was weird to see how far I had come with Portuguese after talking with him at the district meeting on Monday. I remember making the same kind of errors and stuff. With a Brazilian, it is really awesome to see just how much the learning process speeds up with the language. You are forced to use it for every little thing during the day.

So, this last Monday, because we had a small teaching pool, we dedicated a few hours to just making contacts in the road in the neighborhood of Armando Mendes. You can Google that if you want. It’s kind of funny; you can see my area from home. All the roads and stuff.

24 February 2010: Elder Tenney says: "The one of the statue mud looking thing is in the city center.

It is a real person. If you put a coin in the pedestal in front of him he will move around for you."

This last Sunday was really cool. Eduardo, one of our recent converts, received the Aaronic and Mel. Priesthoods. Fabio is going to get it after conference. He would have received it this last Sunday, but he was out of town and didn’t arrive until way early in the morning on Sunday and was just flat out tired. Oh! I am so excited for Conference! It starts at noon here, so that means there is only a 2 hour difference from Manaus and Utah! Sweet beans!

One thing I am looking forward to this transfer is that it is only a 5 week transfer. It will end the end of April, Day 27 I think. I am definitely ready to see a new part of Manaus now.

(In response to his brother's request for information about Brazil for a school project): I don´t know recipes. I live in the poor area. All I eat is Oreo-type cookies, yogurt, rice beans and chicken with spaghetti noodles.

20 January 2010: Bread Store Elder Tenney frequents.

18 Nov. 2009: "Porpoise" sculpture - Manaus

27 March 2010: Manaus - "Untitled Art"

...aka "I'm speechless...."

I just finished reading the book, Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage. I started it when Elder Gannon was here, and I stopped reading it when the transfers came. I had packed it away while Elder Seastrand was here, but I took it out last week and finished the last few chapters. It is a huge ginormous book! It’s just packed with information, too!

Also, I have been reading the Book of Mormon in Portuguese. I am currently at As Palavras de Mórmon. (Words of Mormon)

I completely forgot last week to say something immensely important: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE PACKAGE! I loved it tons. Somehow I still have jerky, but all the fruit snacks are gone already. They were extremely delicious. Translation: THANK YOU!!

This week, we just marked 2 baptismal dates and another wedding. Unfortunately, the wedding with one of the dates is going to have to be during the next transfer, so I don´t know if I will be here or not.

27 March 2010: Scenery on way to Ward party

27 March 2010: Elder Tenney Fighting off a Jungle Animal on His Way to the Ward Party

Now for the fun stuff of the week. This last Saturday our ward had a day long ward activity. It was a bus trip into the interior to a place called Presidente Figueiredo. Yes, I have many pictures. It was so cool. There was a river with some very small rapids and a beach and a giant soccer field and stuff. My camera almost got destroyed because I started sinking into some mud and had my camera in my hand and I fell over and caught myself, but unfortunately with the hand that had the camera, so it got a bit submerged in water. It shorted out the rest of the day. (It’s better now. I dried it out and it works perfectly again.) So I took some pictures from Elder Martins. It was really fun. It was a 3 hour bus trip to the North of Manaus, on the way to Boa Vista. I was really in the Amazon for a day.

27 March 2010: Swimming Hole @ Ward party @ Presidente Figueiredo

27 March 2010: Are there piranhas in there??

One of the other Elders that lives next door to us has a chess board, and we have played one game a night for the past few weeks. Up until now, I am the undefeated champion and king of the nerds. Kidding, Elder Seastrand won once. I´m just king of the nerds.

We tried again last night to set a baptismal date for Joseneire, but he is still a little unsure. Please pray for him. I hope conference this weekend helps him.

Well, I guess that’s all for this week. I´ll just send some pictures to finish things up.